The fifth season of Game of Thrones represents a turning point for the audience.  Where in the past, readers of the source material had a leg up on those only following the television adaptation, by the end of this season, everyone will be in roughly the same situation.  Even this premiere has begun the process: while much of this is adapting the beginnings of the concurrent fourth and fifth volumes, there is material from the middle and even beyond the end of the published material.  It means that even the most religious readers of the books should come into this season as they were Jon Snow, knowing nothing. 

Not surprisingly, this premiere puts a lot of focus on the aftermath of Tywin’s assassination at the hands of his own son Tyrion, and what that means for the surviving members of the declining House Lannister.  Cersei was already struggling to remain relevant; now, she’s trying to maintain her position amongst the arrival of newer threats.  One fun new layer to ponder: she had her future foretold when much younger, and those portents are playing out.  She’s not happy with the prospect of being brought down low by fate.  That said, the flashback makes it very clear that her haughty mindset is hardly the result of worrying over prophecy.



Meanwhile, Margaery is twisting young Tommen around her little finger as she continues to press for power, and that is a direct threat to Cersei’s dreams of being her father’s daughter.  More subtle is the arrival of fundamentalist religion into King’s Landing, seen here in the form of Lancel Lannister, one of the “sparrows” flocking in the royal city.  Anyone with the slightest sense of history can see where this is going, and it is not going to be pretty.

In what might be seen as a rough parallel, especially given the format of the episode, Daenerys is having trouble playing queen in Meereen.  A resistance movement has emerged (“Sons of the Harpy”) and it has escalated to the point where Unsullied are getting murdered and assigned to patrol the streets.  As history aptly demonstrates to this day: invading and conquering are relatively easy compared to occupying.  And Dany is learning that ruling is a lot harder, full of more damning compromises, than she ever suspected.



The issue of the fighting pits is a long laborious one in the source material, so the writers of the show have elected to spice things up a bit.  Daario, Dany’s lover and top mercenary, has been reshaped a bit into a veteran of the fighting pits.  This makes the matter a bit more personal, and also amps up the potential for character conflict.  (And did anyone else notice that they let Dany stay covered up, while exposing far more of Daario?  Emilia Clarke’s demand has been met, it seems!)







If the trajectory of the season is as it seems, then we are unlikely to see Dany stuck in an endless loop of repetitive conversations in Meereen, as was the case in the source material.  Instead, the pacing is likely to bring the conflict at Meereen to the forefront by the end of this season, so the story can move on from here.  That means accelerating other plot threads, not the least of which is the adventures of Exiled Tyrion Lannister.



This is particularly interesting as it strongly suggests, based on Varys’ outline of his motivations and such, that a rather complicating plot thread from the fifth book is going to be excised completely.  Varys is openly revealing to Tyrion that he is working to restore the Targaryen dynasty in the form of Daenerys, which is more or less in line with his philosophy in the novels (restoration of order vs. Littlefinger’s control of chaos) but definitely a change in specific tactics.  It also means that a big chunk of Tyrion’s journey to Meereen seems likely to be removed as well, or at the very least simplified and shortened.







Up at the Wall, Jon Snow’s status as semi-commander from the fourth season becomes important, as he is Stannis’ preferred means of getting through to the Wildlings.  Stannis is pragmatic to a fault, and has to see Jon for the potential ally that he is.  Stannis also tasks Jon with convincing Mance Rayder to “bend the knee” to Stannis so the Wildlings will join his army to retake Winterfell.  This plot thread is seen as many as a major deviation from the novels, though I’m not so sure that it is; the seeds are there if they choose to go the way of the novels. Regardless, Mance’s execution ends as it should, with Jon defiantly killing Mance so he avoids the pain of being burned alive.  That’s not going to make Stannis very happy.



Much comes down to Melisandre’s endgame in the adaptation.  Will it be the same as it was in the novels?  Last season, she seemed to be interested in going to the North because she had already realized that Stannis wasn’t the man with royal blood that she was looking for, and her scene with Jon on the elevator seems to suggest that plans are definitely still in motion.  Even so, will her motivations be explored in more detail?  Sooner or later, her true purpose in the narrative needs to be revealed.






Meanwhile, I mentioned that the show is moving beyond the novels, and this is most apparent in the form of Petyr and Sansa’s subplot.  Thankfully, this means dropping off Robyn with the Royces so he’s not irritating the hell out of the audience.  It also means that Sansa is already showing a few new skills and making it very clear to Petyr that she’s eager to learn from him.  My theory still holds: Sansa is biding her time to figure out Petyr’s plans, develop her own skills as a manipulator, and then gloriously remove him from the game.  She’s poised to become his replacement in whatever regime ends up in power at the end of the saga.  For now, the question for everyone is this: where exactly is Petyr taking her, and how is it as far from their enemies as possible?



As always, the season premiere fulfills its obligations: it takes all the situations summed up nicely in the previous season’s finale and turns them into the beginning of the new season’s plot arcs.  The trick for up-to-date readers will be checking expectations and recognizing where deleted or revised plot threads might mean early exits for beloved characters.  Not everyone assumed to be safe will be safe.  With that in mind, there is plenty of ground to cover in the fifth season, and the stages have already be set.